Harvard Graduate School of Education

Doctorate in Education Leadership

The Ed.L.D. program is a full-time, cohort-based program, ambitious in scope and transformative in purpose, multidisciplinary in design and collaborative in character, practice-based in its foundation, and far-reaching in the ways in which it promises to effect systemic change. It is a program for those with the vision, moral compass, and resilience of purpose to successfully translate their passion for education into extraordinary achievement. The program will provide its students with the conceptual tools, interdisciplinary knowledge, practical skills, and professional experiences needed to positively transform education for all children in the United States.

“Attending PELP with my residency school district was a terrific way to start my residency. The experience enabled me to build solid relationships with the staff in attendance and enabled me to learn a ton about district context. Because we had down time, team time, and social opportunities, I was able to get to know people as people. Now that I am eight months into my residency, I am certain that PELP was critical for me in establishing beginning relationships with my colleagues. I also think it provided a shared set of experiences that enabled me to participate in critical work, tied to the problem of practice, as soon as we returned to the district and for the months that followed.” - Samantha Cohen, Montgomery Country Public Schools Residency, Ed.L.D. Cohort 1

HIVE

Harvard GSE Innovation & Ventures in Education (HIVE)unites students from across Harvard University around education innovation, providing access to resources, mentors, networks, workshops, and competitions to develop impactful solutions to worldwide education problems.

The Urban Superintendents Program

For twenty years, USP provided innovative training for aspiring superintendents, enrolling its last cohort in Fall 2009. Since 1991, USP has produced 26 superintendents, 25 deputy superintendents or chief academic officers, 24 assistant or area superintendents, 21 directors (central office positions), 25 school principals, 10 special assistants or chief of staff, 10 educational consultants, 10 university faculty, and a deputy assistant secretary of education, U.S. Department of Education. The program's graduates advance our country's most important mission: systemically and systematically improving teaching and learning in our public schools in order to enable every child in America to achieve at the highest levels.

Building on the tremendous success of USP, HGSE launched the Doctor of Education Leadership (Ed.L.D.) program in Fall 2010. The new Ed.L.D. Program builds upon the skills, knowledge base, and relationships with school systems and leaders developed in USP.

"The PELP Summer Institute provides USP alumni with a great opportunity to come back to campus, but in new roles as senior district leaders. Having a chance to bring a team to Cambridge to learn and study together, alongside other educational reform leaders from around the country, presents a wonderful, dedicated time for strategic planning and thoughtful tackling of a systemic problem of practice. With expert guidance from PELP faculty, district teams are able to return home with greater clarity and coherence about next steps. As an HGSE USPer, I appreciate PELP as a valuable support and lever for continuing to build internal capacity that results in raising student achievement outcomes to the next level." - Guadalupe Guerrero, Deputy Superintendent of Instruction, Innovation, & Social Justice, San Francisco Unified School District, USP Cohort XIX